The Mississippi Department of Transportation on March 28 received an updated list of locally owned bridges to be closed under Gov. Phil Bryant’s April 2018 emergency bridge closure proclamation.
According to the most current list, the Office of State Aid Road Construction discovered an additional 27 deficient bridges needing immediate closure. These were in addition to 34 local bridges that MDOT said the day before it had been directed to begin immediately closing.
The updated list included one bridge in Webster County. It was described as being over Little Black Creek and on County Road 254, even though Webster has used road names instead of numbers for nearly 20 years.
County Engineer Karl Grubb, using the State Aid structure number given, said the bridge is on Old Walthall Road between Crowell Road and MS Hwy. 50. He confirmed on March 28 that it had been closed for repairs but had been fixed and reopened for weeks.
Grubb said the bridge, which is in road districts 1 and 2, should not have been included on the list of bridges MDOT said required immediate closure. He contacted state officials about the mistake while he was at a board meeting in Eupora that morning. Also, an April 1 Mississippi Today article with an online link to the list includes a notation that MDOT said the bridge in Webster County should not be counted.
State Aid is a separate state agency that enforces federal guidelines for county and city-owned roads and bridges and does not report to the Transportation Commission or MDOT.
